Duncan/Pippen was a great way to start it off. Timmmaaay was the best big man left on the board that you can build around. You were right - Margues/Parish is a steal. Marques is right in that Marshall/Nance/Grant/B. Jones group of 2nd tier SFs but always seems to go after those guys. Parish has poor defense but that's about it. His paint scoring/rebounding is too good to fall all the way to the start of the 4th. You lost me a little with the last 3 picks though. All very good players but I just didn't like how they fit the team. I think you needed a PG. TD/Pip/AI all pass very well but the rest of the guys aren't giving you any dimes. Think you would have been better off drafting a PG with higher ast% who shoots 3s instead of Redd. You could have took the defensive hit there instead, with Pippen/Iggy to over for him. Bogut does everything well but I thought he added usage you didn't need. There were some really nice LMBLs(lower minute board lords) left too. A/T is gonna be a problem and you might be low on FTAs. Of course you don't foul much so that could be a wash. Defense is very good, you got some 3s, and you're very good on the glass. Overall another great drafting job for the longtime vet. Lack of ast% and possibly a conspiracy theory might keep this from being a contender.

****

23. longtallbrad - Jason Kidd, Shawn Marion, Tom Boerwinkle, Carlos Boozer, Kris Humphries, David Thompson, J.R. SmithWell I'm not sure what 98 is seeing, but this is certainly not the worst team in the draft. I thought you nailed the first two picks. Kidd is the easiest PG in the league to fit on a team. Marion plays great D at the 3/4/5 and is a super clean player. I like the 06-07 season the best - unless you need more usage, which this team might. Boerwinkle is an elite LMBL with his sick passing and a great pick in the late 3rd. Does any player get overlooked more because of defense than Boozer? Amazing paint scoring and rebounding along with some dimes and decent pf/to. But the 36 is a killer if you can't hide it. You had Marion to hide him at SF but Boerwinle is just average at 62(lower when he guards PFs too). And when you add Humphries and his 59 D suddenly you have a weak defensive front court for this league. There's nothing wrong with Thompson but I liked someone with lower minutes a whole lot more. And since you got the amazing J.R. Smith to play SG as well, you didn't need all of Thompson's minutes. A lot to like on this team - great rebounding, good passing, 3s, floor balance, and pretty clean too. I'm just not feeling the Thompson/Boozer 1-2 punch despite the great supporting cast.***

I was very impressed with your last squad. I hadn't seen you in a draft league before and when you started with Hakeem/Payton, I thought you would be a doormat for sure. But you did a great job building a team identity around those guys and were a pain to play 8 times. You drafted another very good defensive team here but I don't think you'll reach 43 wins this season. Russell/Oscar is a fine way to start the draft but things got messy with the Kobe/Lanier picks. Kobe is a great scorer and all but he's tough to just throw on a team because he's got good value in the late 3rd. You really need to build around Kobe and make him the focus. I could talk myself into liking a Oscar/Kobe back court with the right bigs, and although Russell is a good fit, once again Lanier will bring a team down. It's never good when you're anointed by smokey57 as an "elite" player. He doesn't get enough oreb% to clean up all the misses from Oscar/Kobe and he only adds to their average efg%. I know the defense was the focus here but since you made a great pick with the new and improved Weatherspoon(check him out if you didn't see the recent changes made to him) you could have drafted a PF with high oreb% and efg% and not worry about hiding his D if it's poor. Harper is a good player, but that's more usage you probably didn't need and it forces either him or /Kobe/Oscar to play SF minutes. He also doesn't shoot 3s, which was needed. Eddie Griffin and his low efg% with 19% usg don't really belong in this league. Chris Andersen was the guy you should have picked there if you wanted defense/boards from someone who can play SF.

First off, great team name. Now, it seemed you weren't too excited about KG in the first. I get that. He doesn't usually end up on too many winning teams and his usage can be a pain in the *** sometimes. I never like him being the #1 guy. You took care of that in the 3rd with Shuttlesworth, who I love as a #1 guy if you are picking near the end of the draft. Allen always gets way more FTAs then you'd think and can put up close to 30ppg. I'd like him even better if you had some paint scoring to balance the floor though. You could have gotten it in the 3rd with Parish or Boozer but I'm not sure I'd be able to pass on Kevin Love either. Mr. Clean just does too many things well for a PF to get hung up on the D. Tree/KG can hide his D and his 3s allowed you to go after Cheeks(the defensive/ast% guard you needed) at PG. Gortat is good but you might have been able to do better there. I like the KG/Allen/Love trio a lot but I'm kinda underwhelmed by the supporting cast so it's not a favortie to me. Everything does fit quite nicely here. Super efficient squad.

Well right away I see that you will have 10 wasted minutes from the Daniels/Unseld/Dampier PF/C combo if you use the seasons you should be. Daniels and Dampier have clear-cut best seasons and Unseld's best seasons are all 2900+ mins. Not to mention that those 3 form maybe the weakest defensive front court in the league. Awesome rebounding from those three with enough paint scoring to compliment Wade but I'm not liking that combo, especially with the wasted minutes. I continue to think Brand is overrated despite the advanced stats telling me otherwise. I don't think this will be the team to prove me wrong either. Pretty weak ast% for a team that isn't going to shoot a high % from the field. I don't think you have the offensive firepower to outscore teams or the defense to shut teams down. Rebounds and D-Wade will win you some games but I don't see a return trip to the playoffs.

I liked the trade for Magic at first but then you locked yourself into the ast% gimmick. It's just not gonna work in this league. I led the league in points, fg%, 3pt%, AND assists last season with just Nash doing most of the heavy lifting in the ast% department. A good offense doesn't need an overload of ast% if you have the right people scoring the ball and proper floor balance. I'm as big on ast% as anyone here, but what's the point if you don't have the guys to finish all those pretty passes. CP3 and Magic will do their thing but Rondo, Webber, and Rose don't exactly strike fear in the hearts of defenses. Webber and Rondo are also both brutal from the line. I'm not seeing any 3pt shooting and the paint scoring is kinda weak. I just think if you're gonna go all out on assists, your goal should be to have a dominant offense. I don't see that with this team. The turnovers will probably cost you a few games as well. The Rose pick made no sense to me as it makes you pretty weak on the glass. Defense is very good and Magic/Cp3 should abuse weak defenders in the back court. This is definitely a bold approach and I'll be interested to see how it turns out.

Another super-efficient squad. It certainly worked well for logain last season. He ran uptempo and only managed 17.8 topg, showing that uptempo doesn't have to mean a disadvantage in turnovers. He also had McHale as one of his main scorers too. This squad could do the same, although Buck will try to ruin that for you I'm sure. I love Brandon and was looking to draft him in the 4th/5th before I traded for Stockton. He usually gets most of his FTAs and you gotta love that A/T ratio, especially for a guy with his usage. It'll be interesting to see if 98 admits he was wrong when Lucas goes for 17/12/4 on 57% shooting with the usual low negatives. 3pt shooting is weak right now but you should still have like 30 mins at guard to help with that. I think this was the first time all 23 owners said "damn...woulda liked to use him" about the same pick. Drummond is a monster and will be getting picked in the 6th round in every draft going forward. Faried was obviously another great pick and it looks like the trade paid off with how you were able to round out your front court. Looking forward to see how your experiment goes as well. A favorite? I'm not so sure Roy/Brandon get them there but definitely a playoff team.

Big Ben was picked kinda early but I guess if you didn't want to start with a guard(Magic/CP3/Wade) then he's not a bad pick there. He's probably the 2nd best low usage D/Boards guy after Rodman. I thought you nailed the Ginobili pick. He should go 2nd/3rd round every draft in this league. He does everything you want from your high usage lead guard. The good thing about Big Ben is that he allows you to take virtually any scoring PF you want. He covers all flaws with his defense, low usage, and low to/fls. In hindsight, I guess you could have used that to your advantage to grab either Porter or Nash with the Zo pick and take a PF/C later. Can't really blame you though, none of the PF/Cs you would have got later play D like Zo and you really did run into some bad luck with Porter/Nash going in the 6 picks between your 3rd rounders. You got a steal with my favorite SF Ho Grant in the late 3rd. I know you weren't excited about it because of the PG situation but he really fits well with Zo/Ben. And since you have two positions with low usage guys, he should get more opportunities to put that 57% efg to good use. Ruland is an interesting backup to Zo. Great offense but he's as dirty as they get. McMillan/Barry form a nice PG combo for what was left of that position. The backup to Manu is going to very important - I'll be very curious to see who you use. Solid squad but it just doesn't have that "damn i dont think i can outscore them" feel most of your teams do. In fact, it looks like the defense is the teams strong point, rare from an ash squad. I think this team will go as far as Manu/Zo can carry them, which feels like 40-45 wins to me.

Well steelers, I was looking for someone to fill the void left behind by jethro and you may be the guy to do it. The dream at 15 was a bad way to start it off. Hakeem really isn't a bad player in this league since his salary doesn't kill you here. In fact, I think you can absolutely win in this league with him. Just not how you built around him. Offensively, he just can't hang with the likes of Wilt,Shaq,Moses,Kareem,Howard etc. He doesn't score in the paint enough and 52% shooting looks weak compared to the 55-60% of his piers. He doesn't draw fouls like those guys either. And even though his p48 numbers aren't as bad as everyone makes them out to be there, he has been known to kill teams with his fouls and turnovers. What Hakeem does do better than just about everyone is defense. That's why you pick Hakeem. And to best take advantage of his skills I think you need to build a nasty, defensive-minded half-court team around him. Running half-court also negates the damage his fls/tos can do. Reed(2nd is waaaaaaay to early for him) and Hot Rod fit this plan. Barry and Jackson do not...at all. Other teams back courts are gonna light you up. And with the defense kinda shaky, and no chance to outscore teams on a consistent basis, I don't see how this team escapes the basement. Oh, and why Keith Askins? There are plenty of other guys out there that shoot the 3 without committing 7 fp48.

98 definitely gets a lot credit for making this commentary thread one of the most interesting ones ever. I enjoyed the bold claims thrown out there even if I'm not totally sure if 98 is just f*cking with us or not(come on 98, you know damn well iverson was maybe the worst pick ever). However, I do know he's not joking around with his team since he has about 40 or 50 bucks riding on them. I was worried about my bet with 98 until the 5th round. Until then, it looked like a very good team was forming. Loooove me some Chauncey and I liked the fact that Dr. J is playing SF(im thinking you're gonna use an early 70s version of him) since he rebounds well enough to play there. I liked Hawkins too if it's the low usage, high defense version. Beaty is a solid post scorer and rebounder who always has good value for when he gets picked(usually 4th/5th). My fears of losing the bet vanished as soon as my favorite eval whipping boy entered the mix. Hill is the DeMarcus Cousins of sim-ball. He might be able to throw up some big stat lines here and there but at the end of the day he's just an inefficient scorer whose usage you wish was 10 points lower. If he is the super-sub for the 1-3 I kinda get it, but if he's playing the bulk of his mins at PF you have some serious oreb issues. Bradley was a nice pick, definitely one of those guys I'm surprised is better than I thought(one of the bonuses of doing these evals). I'm not sure what the strength of this team is. It's not the defense(though very solid) or the boards. Bullips is the only 3pt threat. Turnovers will probably be high with Hill and Erving. The passing is excellent though. I guess that would be it. But when it's Dr. J and Grant Hill(26.1 pp48 - my biggest problem with him) receiving most of those passes, defenses shouldn't be too worried. Solid team, but I've seen you draft much better ones then this.

I'm pretty sure this was Thomcat's first draft league ever and I gotta say it was pretty impressive. A whole lot better than my first team, that's for sure. Malone is a top 10 pick who can carry a team all season long and in the playoffs. I usually always go for the 96-97 version of him but you have enough dimes from the 1-3 to use his higher-scoring 89-90 season. Malone seems to get paired with Mutombo a lot(at least they were last season) since it makes a ton of sense to pair him with a low usage rebounder. It's a shame that you have to choose between defense and dreb% with him though. That 99-00 season deserves a 90 d or higher. After slipping all the way to the 5th last season, Frazier is back were he belongs in the 2nd/3rd rounds. His rebounding, passing, and defense all help cover for your next pick of Barros. I like that back court combo a lot. They also form a really nice 2/3 punch to compliment the main guy, Malone. All three guys should be able to reach their max since you went low usage at the 3 and 5. McCray does everything well and plays a very clean game. I think the main reason he doesn't always get drafted is that his rebounding is kinda weak for a SF and he doesn't give you any 3s as a SG. Ceballos is a stud and definitely one of the elite backups at the 2-4. Great pick. Kermit is a solid big(although I don't care for the season you picked) but with Malone/Mutombo you had enough D to cover up the poor defense from a LMBL. I thought you really could have used an Evans, Przybilla, Nater, or some other big like that with insane rebounding. 3s are weak but at least the one guy shooting them will give you over 200 of them at 45+%. Very nice job with your first team but I think the boards will be the achilles heal.

Well tang, I know you didn't want Chuck but you didn't have to do him dirty like that. 86-87 Barkley may be his best rebounding season but it's definitely not the way to take advantage of your first round stud. Barkley should almost always be used at SF. The 87-88 is the one to use if you want him to be the lead dog and 88-89 and 89-90 are great seasons to use if you want him as the 2nd option. No way I would ever let 49% Spencer Haywood take more shots than 60% Barkley. It makes no sense. It might have been kinda early for Mookie but he does have a unique skill set that few PGs have. I didn't mind that pick or the Danny Green one. Danny Green is the lower minute version of Wesley Person(a SG who usually always gets drafted) but since you are playing some of AK47s mins at SG it was the better choice. That's a ton of 3pt shooting from the back court. You broke my heart with the LARRY SANDERS!(i hope at least one of you gets this) pick. I almost took him in the 5th and probably should have. He gives you great defense/boards at the 3/4/5. Overall the defense and rebounds are solid and despite the extremely dirty Barkley you used, you are still kinda low on TOs/FLs. If it wasn't for cutting off Barkley's balls with the season you picked and the Haywood pick, I would like this team a whole lot more.

Now this is my type of team! Let me start off by saying you're welcome. I was one of the owners who gave you the wonderful gift of Kareem at #12. Top 5 guy to me. Even though it was early for McAdoo(or was it? were so used to seeing him go in the 3rd or later but really, he does have 2nd round talent) I liked that pick as it gives you something to make the team special and give other teams major problems. Most teams don't have 2 bigs that can guard both guys so McAdoo should be able to take advantage of that. And with the high number of 3s that were drafted, teams can't get away with playing -2 or -3 on you. Nash is the best offensive PG(on a per min basis) in the game imo. Sure, he's gonna drive you nuts with turnovers but if you build the type of team he belongs on then it shouldn't matter. This is that type of team. Nash cruised past 200 3s last season and shot them close to 50% - that's insane. In addition to being a top 5 assist guy he's also a top 5 3pt shooter. I love the fact you kept him as the 3rd option too. You always want a 60% efg guy taking as many shots as possible. The Anderson's bring the 3's and Bo gives you a wing stopper(great thing about him is his ability to cover SGs). I thought you used the wrong season but Birdman was a great pickup in that trade. Definitely an elite 6th round pick. This should be one of the leagues best offenses and Kareem should be top 3 in MVP voting. I can't make this one of my favorites because of the glaring weakness on defense and on the glass. In fact, the offensive brilliance may have blinded me to the fact that those things could even push this team out of the playoffs. But I don't think Kareem lets that happen.

It's surprising you would take Artis over Kareem or Malone, but he is a 1st round center and you may have used those guys before and wanted to try something new. It's about damn time our German draftee went with his countries best player ever. Dirk is great #1 scoring option and one the best closers in the game. I'm pretty sure he led the league in FTM last season and he can get you 30ppg. You just have to have the right guys around him. Artis is a great fit at center(although his d suffers if switched onto a pf) but I thought you screwed up the SF spot. Ho Grant was the pick since defense and oreb% were needed there. Maxwell does many good things and his oreb% is ok, but it's not high enough and the D isn't good enough to cover for Dirk. Wallace is going to be a busy man guarding the other teams best 2-4 and his defensive rebounding is outstanding for a SG. But I hate the fact that his usg is higher than both Gilmore's and Maxwell's. Oh and also Calderon's. Speaking of Jose, holy sh!t - look at that 12-13 season. His days of going undrafted are officially over. Even if he doesn't get picked as a starter his 900 min season is now one of the elite backup pg seasons. His oreb% and def isn't what you needed, but that's a nice season by Anthony Davis, very solid in all categories. There's a lot to like about the offense but I don't think it's good enough to cover for the poor defense. The lack of offensive rebounding hurts too. Nice to see you go with Dirk but the pieces just don't quite fit around him.

If you remember, after last seasons draft I declared that my team was the best in the league. Something I had never done before. Well it wasn't the best, but very damn close(and i wonder if the finals might have been different had sixers still been coaching them). So, obviously, when I see the amazing Dwight/Amare combo again with good pieces around them I think you can guess how I feel about this team. Yes, it's my favorite to win it all. Porter is no Nash but he is a better defender and turns it over less. Harper is the back court defender you needed and he brings the 3s and dimes. Marshall is the ultimate SF in this league. No one matches his 3s, defense, and rebounding from the SF spot. My one knock on Marshall would be that he doesn't offensive rebound well enough to make up for Amare. But then you went ahead and grabbed a great LMBL in Gadzuric to beef up the oreb%. Plus, as tarheel pointed out about my team last season, you don't really need to focus on oreb% when your guys hardly ever miss, dreb% is more important. Tinsley is one of my favorite backup PGs. I love the defense and 3s he gives you. I did notice that you brought in my backup PG from last season as well, which means Tinsley is backing up Harper. That hurts you on the boards but I like that move since that guy is an amazing offensive player who I was surprised didn't get drafted. I agree with you that you probably have more usage in the starting lineup then needed. It shouldn't hurt you too much though and I think Dwight/Amare will still get their necessary touches. Fouls will be a problem and your gonna drop some games when Howard or Amare or both foul out too soon. That drove me nuts last season. But it's a small price to pay when your team shoots 55% every game. Your gonna enjoy this squad sly, nothing better then seeing those boxscores when you drop 140 and shoot 60%.

For the record, if there was 100 bucks on this league I would never take Durant here. It would have been Kareem. But I really wanted to give the 12-13 Durant a try. I was glad to make the trade with ash since I love Stockton and I feel like the late 2nd/early 3rd guys really aren't that much better than some of the guys that fall to the lower 3rd/ early 4th. The exception would be the 3 low usage defense/rebound guys that go in the middle to late 2nd(mutombo/chandler/camby). If I had stayed put I would have picked Camby. That would have been a fine start as well but since I ended up with Bynum and Okafor I feel great about the trade. 2.4 fp48 for Bynum. That alone should make him a 3rd rounder in this league. If you missed my post about Hickson in this thread, go ahead and check out his advanced numbers compared to Parish. Pretty damn close. I tried to focus on having as clean a team as possible this time around and I thought I did a great job with fouls. Turnovers? Well I was f*cked either way with the Stockton/Durant combo to start. I'm hoping the offense will be good enough to make up for it. I don't have much 3pt shooting but at least the guys I do have shooting them are all well over 40%. Rebounding should be solid and the defense is average enough to keep me in it. Stockton WILL lead the league in assists. If Durant dominates like I think he can, this team could make a run. I expect playoffs, but I don't think I have enough here to call it a favorite.

One of the things I like about a 52mil cap is it really allows you to get creative with your team and make picks based on talent instead of cap flexibility(or more likely its because im horrible at managing the cap). Coach was able to pick unique players in rounds 2-5 that only play 25-32 mins with the knowledge that he could find great rotational players late in draft to compliment them. Davis and Edge are great support players and just perfect 6th round picks. I actually already regret not picking Edge with one of my 6th rounders. 8th overall is early for Bird but he's absolutely someone who can bring home a title for you. Kemp and Jones will certainly give this team trouble with the TOS/FLs but they bring a ton to the table. Jones is overrated as a rebounding SF though, it's more about the defense, passing, and efg% with him. Ward is like a mini-Mookie with lower usg% and I love how the usage is set up for Harden. You should be able to take advantage of his great efg% and FT shooting. Nice job drafting. I want to call this a favorite but I have a feeling you may be at a disadvantage on the boards and the turnovers and fouls may be higher then you expect. I also like the other Kemp season better.

One of these days I'll get my shot at Rodman. He and Wilt are the only two 1st rounders I've never used. He lets you do so many things. And I'm glad you will be playing the bulk of his mins at SF, he's got more value there. I liked the Chandler pick a lot. He allowed you to get your scoring big later on without having to stress over defense or rebounding. As you know, I liked Amare to be that guy but Daugherty is a nice player himself. Plays a clean game, makes his free throws, and adds some dimes too. You just wish his usg% was a little higher so you could see that amazing efg% in action more. Sabonis is a stud backup and gives you the usage you needed there. I think how good this team can be depends mostly on how the back court performs. Deron and West are gonna turn it over a ton, that's a given. But they also bring great ast% and defense and West should get plenty of trips to the line. I'm just not sure what to expect from those guys as I haven't really used either guy(at least not that season of west) that much and I'm not sure what they are capable of. Both will be needed to score on a consistent basis. The 12-13 Korver is pretty damn incredible. I would like to see it in action but I can see why you may not use it since D and boards are needed too. Tough decision there. Great all-around team with few holes but I'm just not sure I trust that back court. It'll be fun to see. I'll definitely have a better opinion of those guys after I see how your team does.

And now my favorite part of the evals. I get to rip into banditone's team knowing that I have a 50/50 chance of being completely wrong and having to watch in horror as his team beats mine during the regular season. He had Rick f*cking Barry play PG for him last season but still beat me 4 times and won 40+ games. So I guess I should reverse-jinx this trend and give him a good eval? Nah. I'm too bitter about him destroying the beautiful inside-out combo of Shaq/Curry. Eddie Jones was the non-iccoachb WTF pick of the draft. I love Eddie in this league, a great 3 and D guy. But 3rd round is nuts. He wasn't even drafted last season. Then it just went to sh*t after that with a bunch of old guys who don't board enough and take away shots from Curry/Shaq. No dimes, defense is poor, good amount of TOs/FLs but plenty of ranch dressing, so at least that's covered. Awful team that's headed for the lottery. I can't wait to see if, and how, bandit pulls another 40+ win team out of his a$s this time.

Interesting. You may have the best front court defense and also the worst back court defense. That will probably make this teams success depend on division match ups more than most. So don't take it personally that I put you pretty high on my list. I don't mind D-Rob shutting down Bynum if Durant is gonna light up Terry for 40+. Lots to like here though. Good inside-out game going on with the usage spread nicely. Curious to see which Price you use(i like 2 seasons equally). Should lead the league in blocks. Tarpley/Roundfield give you the rebounding you needed from the backup 3/4 spots. Decent amount of assists too. As good as D-Rob is from the line, as a team overall I think you will lose the FT battle. I thought you reached with your first two picks too. Both guys are great at what they do but better players were available. I thought you might have been better off keeping the defensive theme going with the back court, although I'm not sure who was out there that would give you the usage/ast% you needed while still playing D and giving you good enough efg%. Can't wait to see what kind of offense Ibaka is gonna give you with his new 12-13 season and its 57% shooting on 18% usg.

I'll start off by saying I had you pegged as the other favorite in the league until I saw you went Mullin over Drexler. Then I kinda talked myself back into making you a favorite. Mullin has better D(58) then I though and he also gets to the line more than Drexler. You lose out on defense, 3s, and boards but Mullin is the better scorer. Still not sure about that move but I can see why you made it. Penny is back where he belongs in the late 2nd/early 3rd. Great picks with Gasol and Green too. Super clean players with solid D and good shooting. I think your lacking in ast% and you don't have much 3pt shooting. You also are just average on the boards for a Moses team. But I dig how you piled on the usg% without it feeling like overkill. Your top 4 guys should all play nice and allow each other to get theirs. Pau and Mullin will benefit greatly from seeing weaker defenders and I like the fact that you can afford an off-day from 1 or 2 of the 4 if the other guys have it going on. The real beauty of this team is the FT line. It's gonna be tough when you can't draw any fouls from this team and Moses, Mullin, and Penny put your team in foul trouble. The defense is solid enough to win and you can't find a better backup SG then 94-95 Drexler. 12-13 Ed Davis is nice a new edition to the low usg/ high reb guys who can play the 3. I'd love to know how they come up with pos eff here at wis. Almost every big man this year was given the ability to play SF despite the NBA getting smaller and smaller. Ed Davis didn't log 1 single minute at SF this year. Anyway, this should really be a 4 star team but I think despite his last teams performance, owner rep is giving it a slight bump.

Usage-wise this team reminds me of the one scud drafted and I ran in the ODL. Jordan went for 35 a night with good shooting numbers. I see him doing about the same here. It's definitely his show here. You cant do much better than Camby/Nance on the 2/3 turn to compliment Jordan. Both guys have such great defense and low negatives. KJ is a 3rd round talent that always goes in the 4th. He'll be a great sidekick to Jordan and should take full advantage of his FTAs being the #2 scoring option. Sammy is a very good LMBL and his 61 D is higher then most of those guys. Odom was a favorite of mine for awhile but I haven't been able to use him lately. He adds 3s, dreb%, ast% while playing a clean game and you can hide his D with Nance and Camby. The Melo pick caused a lot of owners to change their backup SG(myself included). The funny thing is we all moved on to the same exact guy. I'll mention who when we start the season. The two things I don't like here are the offensive rebounding and the paint scoring. But in return you did end up with a very efficient squad. Jordan should be in beast mode all year long and take this team right to the playoffs.

You can see the similarities to sixers title winning squad from last season. Wilt with the two high usage guards. Both forwards playing D and rebounding. I don't like Pierce/Payton as much as Penny/McGrady but they are a tough back court combo to deal with. You also have Wilt as the #3 scoring option instead of 4th like sixers did - stuck behind Willis Reed. I like that much better since you always want the 68% guy taking as many shots as possible. The efg% outside of Wilt is pretty bleh but you do have great ast% to help that out. I didn't care for the Ersan pick. I think you'd be better off going for cheap oreb%(reggie evans?) instead to save you cash for backup guards and help Wilt and Oakley clean up all those missed shots from Payton/Pierce. The defense is outstanding and of course with pretty much all Wilt teams, you don't foul that often. Wilt is gonna do his thing and be a MVP candidate and I think Mason/Oakley will shine in their roles. But I'm not sold that Payton/Pierce is a championship back court. Of course, I thought the same thing about sixers team last season.

A team like this deserves a gimmick. I'm going to pretend I'm the newly hired GM and iccoachb is the Al Davis-like owner who really calls the shots.

dh: Ok I was actually thinking we should take Wilt Cha..

ic: I want LeBron

dh: Oh. Ok yea, I'm on board with that. His 12-13 season is amazing. I was just thinking that a big man is still more valuable then a guard. Plus he plays the whole game. No to mention all the other thin..

ic: Just take LeBron

dh: Gotcha. Can't go wrong with LeBron

dh: Ok, now for our 2nd rounder I was thinking a SF. Maybe Nance or Grant. What do you think?

ic: Nance? Grant? I never even heard of these guys. How many points do they average?

dh: Well they aren't really known for their scoring but around 13-18.

ic: That's pathetic. Who was the guy who scored all those points for the title winner.

dh: Tracy McGrady?

ic: Yea, thats the guy. I want him.

dh: Well we already have LeBron. It wouldn't make sense to take away shots from him.

ic: You can never have too many points. Draft him.

dh: Ok. *sigh* Well we should probably draft a big man here. I would suggest a low usage..

ic: Whats usage? Nevermind that. I already know who we need to anchor the middle. Give me the Ewing kid. This guy scores 29 points a game. He's a steal in the 3rd!

dh: Well actually that's about where he was projected to go. And we would be better off drafting a rebounder then another scorer.

ic: What did I say about scoring points?

dh(under his breath): This is ridiculous. Just ignore everything I say then. Perfect.

ic: What was that?

dh: Nothing

ic: We have back to back picks coming up. You can make one while I research for the other one.

ic: All right, I'm back. Who did you take.

dh: Well we needed someone to clean up all the misses so I picked Jayson Williams, one of the games best offensive rebounders.

ic: Doesn't score enough for my taste but our next pick will make up for that.

dh: Oh no

ic: I found this kid who averages 30 ppg and he's still around!

dh: no no no...

ic: He's a little short but knows how to fill it up and can play point guard for us.

dh: Seriously I'm gonn...

ic: Allen Iverson!

dh: That's it! I quit!

*

Surprised they didn't get drafted

Swen Nater - once a 3rd rounder...defense too low i guess
Josh Smith - D and boards from the 3...usg too high though?
Reggie Evans - his 12-13 season is rodman minus the d
Wesley Person - super efficient bomber from a final 4 team last season
Troy Murphy - 2nd season on a row for the guy who used to be a 2nd rounder(of course he had a 96 d then)
Joel Przybilla - one of the best lmbl
Omer Asik/Nik Vucevic - guess no one wanted to try the new guys and their suspect d
Peja Stojakovic - top 5 bomber gets no love anymore
Vince Carter - guess vance's team last year scared everyone away
Danny Granger - a couple of teams could have used this guy

since sixernuggets is not able to be in the draft, the task of league evals goes to the runner-up...me

vancem is a tough act to follow with the evals and since im also running the league, dont expect me to be as active with it like he was....however i will do a full team eval for everyone at the end as well as adding comments here and there.....feel free to comment anytime....the more talk about the picks, the better the draft imo

no surprise with the first two pick....these are, without a doubt, the two best players in the draft

This is my 7th ODL/$52 league, I don't think I've seen an elite team yet with player X. That said I'll take him at #7 if he is there. I think vance was correct in his assessment last time that for this league player X is used at the wrong position. Will discuss more once he is drafted.

Well the Admiral pick at #5 will make my decision at #7 far more difficult. Not that the Admiral at #5 is a bad pick per se, because clearly he is top-10 and it's always nice to bank 100D to build around, but now there will be someone at #7 that I really thought would be long gone.

Well vance, your Moses pick forced my hand on the Worm, one of the few guys that can hang with Moses on the boards and we already KNOW I'll be able to find usage later. I'll likely play him a lot at PF and look for 3's from the SF position. I hate the idea of waiting 34 more picks to grab a usage guy, and most Rodman teams have been epic failures here lately, up his cost per minute for what he brings was something I had to roll the dice on this time. Plus the last two $52 leagues I've been seriously lacking on the orb's and clearly Rodman not only solves that but allows me to tradeoff orb% later in the draft for efg%.

I'm shocked that you didn't take Durant natenoy. I really was set on taking Rodman until I went through a few of the previous drafts and saw how hard it was to get the high quality usage to make it work. I figured that if Ginandjuice couldn't get it to work last season than why should I try it? Plus, Moses is so much more than just a rebounder.

Vance, back when I could have been as low as 12 I spent about a day ranking players. I had a list of 5 that I thought would never be available and I told myself that if one of the 5 dropped then I would FORCE myself to take him. I had Howard 6 and Durant 7 and may have gone with Durant anyway, but I stuck with what I had already decided.

Looking at the last few seasons of data I don't think Rodman can get THAT many more boards at SF than he does at PF. To me the mistake that teams have made is that they sacrifice all their SF usage by just riding Rodman there. If a premium SF makes it back to me in the 2nd I may go that route. I do see your point about quality usage later, but Rodman allows me to have at least one sub-50 D player or a guy with great dreb% and efg% that never gets orb's. Plus as I said his cost per minute is low compared to what he gives you, so taking a guy that costs upwards of $8mill in the 2nd and/or 3rd doesn't blow your cap when you start with Rodman.

Now watch and see if another high D high reb% low usage guy falls to me in the 2nd, when I take one of those you'll really see that I've gone a different direction this time.

You have given us all updates dh555. IMO we should go on the clock as soon as possible. There's been just 3 picks made since you picked last night at 4:31 pm. So 3 picks in the last 23 hours? What's the issue fellas?